Love 'n' Lies
by Tarnished Secret
Summary: Ino and Shikamaru always were an interesting couple. Don't expect anything to change soon. InoxShika.


**Based entirely on the song "This is Such a Pity" by Weezer. I imagine them all being about 17-18, but that's unlikely... Maybe 16-17.**

--

They were at it again.

The whole neighborhood cringed in disbelief at the screams echoing from the small house in the middle of the street. Sakura, the owner of the house directly next door, walked to her open window and yelled a random obscenity at the house before slamming her window shut and attempting to hear herself think.

Despite many complaints, and others like Sakura who tried to quiet the noise by contributing, the howls went on all night until early in the morning when a certain spiky-haired Jounin marched out purposefully.

And so ends another epic fight in the history of Shikamaru and Ino.

--

Later that same day, Yamanaka Ino walked out of the house, ignoring her neighbor's complaints. They'd eventually get over it; at least until the next fight. 'But there's not going to be a "next fight",' Ino thought angrily. 'I'm done with that lazy-ass.' With similar thoughts in her head, Ino walked into the flower shop, slamming the door so hard a fragment of glass fell and shattered against the floor.

"Oy, Ino-chan, are you going to clean that up!" Sakura asked half-heartedly, trying to sort out the shop's financial problems. Sakura had been helping Ino out with the shop ever since her parents had retired, and had mainly taken over the money part, since Ino knew everything about the flowers.

"I'll get to it when I want to," Ino replied menacingly. Sakura stopped calculating and looked at her friend.

"He hasn't apologized yet?"

"What are you talking about?" Ino started pruning, taking away the dead plants in the shop, and accidentally snapped the stem of a rose because she was gripping the flower too hard.

"Shikamaru. You two got in a fight last night and he still hasn't apologized?" Normally the Jounin would say his sorrys after Ino grew mad, but before she got **too** mad.

"There aren't going to be any apologies, Sakura. We broke up for good." Despite the harshness in Ino's voice, Sakura knew how much the girl loved Shikamaru. She mentally set the period of anger for one more day and vowed to stay out of Ino's way until then.

-

Sakura advised Ino to leave before she broke all of the shop's flower stems, and she obeyed, attempting to leave the shop looking happy and staying happy in case she ran into one of her friends, and not even two steps from the shop did she encounter one.

_Crunch._

"Hey, Ino."

"Hey, Chouji." Walking up next to her, the boy offered her his ever-present chip bag, and Ino took a small amount of chips. This told Chouji a lot about his teammate's mental heath. If he offered her chips and she didn't take any, she was normal. If she took a bunch, she was feeling self-conscious. If she took a little, she and Shikamaru had gotten into a fight. It was all very simple.

"Did something happen with you and Shikamaru?" He asked, figuring that the blunt way was the way to go. Her silence told him all he needed to know. "You should go to the cloud field and wait for him."

"You think so? Do you think he'll apologize?"

"I don't know; I don't even know what you guys were fighting about!" Chouji answered matter-of-factly, shoving another handful of chips into his mouth. Ino's face set on a grim expression.

"We were fighting because Shikamaru kissed another girl."

"He what!" Chouji's mouth hung open slightly. Ino blushed.

"'He kissed another girl."

"Who!"

"...Tenten."

"Tenten!"

"Yeah." Ino glared at the ground. "You know what Chouji, I'm going to the cloud field. Thanks for the help!" She waved back, running towards the field.

"...What did I do?" He wondered, munching on some more chips.

-

Shikamaru lazily cracked open one eye. He saw a tree... A cloud that looked like a frog... And a blonde figure running toward him.

Wait...

Damn.

Shikamaru opened both eyes and propped up on his elbows. He was rightly furious, and instead of running away he stood up, as if to challenge the approaching Jounin. "You ready to apologize?" He called out.

"Hell no," She called back. "Are you ready to?" She reached him, leaning against the tree he himself was.

"Hell no. I didn't do anything to be sorry for! You're the one who kissed someone else!" Ino plucked a piece of grass from the ground and chewed on it thoughtfully. Albeit his hatred for her at that moment, Shikamaru couldn't help but think about how adorable she looked... And that only made him worse.

"You slut."

"What!" Ino bolted up, swallowing the grass involuntarily. "I'm a slut!"

"Yes! You just make out with anyone you want, don't you! You're constantly flirting; you **want **to be noticed that way!" Ino growled, preparing her come-backs.

"Well, I'm glad you finally noticed that! Maybe now you'll actually pay more attention to me!"

"It's too troublesome to pay attention to a high-maintenance girl like you! There's not enough hours in the day to focus on you enough to make you happy!"

"That's why we shouldn't be going out!"

"That's why we're **not**!"

"Fine! Now we're breaking up!"

"We broke up last night!"

"I hate you!"

"How childish."

"Shut up! You don't know anything about me!"

"I know everything about you." Shikamaru slid down the tree trunk, landing and looking up at the red-faced girl. "I don't like what I see." To his astonishment, a wet drop of water landed squarely on his nose. He had expected her to leave, then he would show up at her door tonight and apologize, even though she was the one who kissed Kiba. It was how they solved all their fights, but he had never seen her cry. She slumped down to the ground like him, and he found himself putting his arm around her.

After a couple of minutes of crying, the sobbing subsided although the tears still flowed, and he heard her mumbling.

"Hm?"

"I said I'm sorry," She lifted her face from his shirt and leaned against the tree. "I just wanted you to pay more attention to me," She whispered. "Instead of treating me like all of your other friends that are girls, like Sakura or Hinata. I didn't think I was like them to you."

"You're not..." He trailed off, staring at the clouds, blushing furiously. Ino scoffed.

"Yeah right."

"I'm serious, Ino." Although he wasn't looking at her, his dark brown eyes were serious, as she saw. The next few minutes passed by quietly before Ino sighed and stood up.

"This is getting so troublesome; fighting all the time," She remarked. "Sometimes I really think we'd do better just as friends."

"Do you now?"

"Yeah, but then I always end up disagreeing with myself." She smiled. "Are we okay?" Scrolling through his vocabulary of romantic-y things he'd had to come up with to please Ino's inner romantic, Shikamaru just settled with a lazy "yeah", resulting in a punch on the head.

But he knew that they were back to normal... At least until the next big fight.


End file.
